i see murder victims
by blenderfullasarcasm
Summary: Kaito might or might not be going crazy. It might or might not be a product of sleep deprivation. Until he figured it out for sure, he was just going to ignore the disembodied voice that might or might not be coming from the seat next to him. ...And then Edogawa Conan showed up and ruined THAT plan.
1. in which kaito may be going crazy

So.

Ghosts.

They were apparently a thing that existed. And not only in horror movies.

After the whole almost-becoming-a-slave-to-a-witch-who-apparently-communed-with-Satan-oh-and-who-was-also-his-classmate-and-really-wanted-him-to-fall-in-love-with-her-for-some-reason-(not-that-he-wasn't-devilishly-handsome-of-course)-or-become-her-minion-or-something-(he-wasn't-too-clear-on-that-part) thing, he really didn't know why he was even surprised.

But yeah.

Kaito could see dead people.

It was a pretty new development.

_I'll just take a trip over to Gunma, I said. _Kaito thought frantically, almost bordering on hysteria. _The murder rates there are pretty low, I said. I probably won't run into a detective, I said. It'll be nice to have a chance to figure out if I'm going crazy without people trying to interrogate me, I said._

And then of course Edogawa Conan had walked in and Kaito's day had become approximately 1412% worse. Because Conan was, arguably, the absolute _worst _of the tantei to show up at that moment.

_Okay, okay, be calm. Poker Face. You're just a university student working on a paper due at midnight. Yup, no reason to look over here, Tantei-kun._

His disguise was, in fact, that of a university student...except that he had been a bit lazy and basically the only part that could conceivably be called a disguise was the fact that he wasn't wearing his school uniform but was wearing fake glasses.

...like Edogawa Conan.

Kaito resisted the urge to facepalm.

Was he really so tired that he'd thought that would be a legitimate disguise?

Apparently.

He ended up letting his head sink to the table and groaning loudly.

_Oh, great going, Kaito. Way NOT to attract attention, _he thought to himself as hesitant footsteps made their way towards him. He ignored the sound of someone trying to stifle a chuckle to his left, mainly because _that was where the wall was and he was not going crazy, nope, nothing to see here, folks -_

"Are you alright, sir?"

He forced himself to peek out from behind his arm to look at the waitress. He pitched his voice lower before saying, "Yeah, I'm fine. Just functioning on about two hours of sleep with a paper due at midnight. Any chance of some more coffee?"

She made a sympathetic noise, saying "I remember what that's like," before flipping open the lid of the coffee pot she was holding. She frowned. "I'll just put on a fresh pot for you. This one's nearly gone. I'll be back in ten minutes."

"Thanks."

"No problem." And with that, she ambled back to the kitchen.

Kaito kept his face buried in his arms because, seriously, _that _was a better disguise than _a pair of glasses _.

"_Don't you have your kit with you?" _someone asked. From his left. Where there couldn't possibly be anyone because _he was alone at his table, damn it!_

Yeah, not looking great for the whole 'not being crazy' thing.

Kaito shrugged minutely. He _did _have his disguise kit with him, though at the moment it was only the light version he took to school since he hadn't exactly been expecting to run into any detectives.

May as well take the disembodied voice up on his suggestion.

Oh, wow, he really was going crazy.

Though Hakuba would probably argue that anyone who intentionally poked Aoko into chasing them with a mop wasn't exactly the poster child for sanity.

Actually, so would the rest of his class.

And probably the teacher.

And then there was the whole KID thing.

Huh.

So maybe this weird voice-thing had been coming for a while?

Kaito yawned, stretching his arms above his head and then making his way to the restroom in the back of the café, keeping his shoulders slumped and his head down as if he couldn't be bothered to support them properly. A few people's eyes absently tracked his movement, but no one was all that interested in a procrastinating college student.

Upon entering the bathroom, he locked the door behind him before remodeling his face a little bit. A few shades paler - not enough to be noticeable to the waitress, since she hadn't really seen his face, and he was already paler than normal due to sleep deprivation - and some contouring to make his bone structure look different did the trick, and only took a few minutes. He ran the faucet for a moment and wiped down the counter, checking his clothes and the floor for traces before pretending to rub his eyes as he exited the bathroom.

...and nearly tripped over one Edogawa Conan.

This was his life now, wasn't it. Had Lady Luck deserted him?

No, he hadn't been shot yet. They were still on good terms.

...but maybe he should visit a shrine before he went home tonight.

Just to be safe.

Kaito blinked lethargically, staring at nothing for a moment before focusing on Tantei-kun. "Oh. Hello."

Conan giggled, which was actually really creepy. "Sorry, Niichan!" he chirped.

Kaito resisted showing the shudder that went down his spine.

"No problem, kid," he said instead, patting him absently on the head before dragging himself back to the table where his laptop was set up - screen locked, of course, before he went to the restroom. He perked up a bit at the sight of a half-full steaming cup of coffee. Kuroba Kaito wasn't much of a fan, but Asano Keisuke practically lived off the stuff.

...as long as it was doctored with enough milk, cream, and sugar to cause a seven-year-old's mother to choke at the thought of the impending sugar rush.

Kuroba Kaito could live with _that _kind of coffee.

Thus, after doctoring it within an inch of its life, he turned his laptop back on.

And quickly exited the solitaire game he'd been playing, because he needed to pretend to work on an essay instead.

He pulled up an old essay and started typing at the end - in code, of course, because one could never be too careful with Edogawa Conan nearby. But not the type of code that was obviously code, with all the mixed up letters that obviously don't make words, no - he used a word substitution code so it would look like an actual paper.

It probably wouldn't stand up to close examination from Tantei-kun, though. Which was why he wasn't going to come anywhere near it.

Well, hopefully.

Who knew what freaky psychic powers Edogawa Conan had, seriously.

Hey, maybe he could help with this predicament Kaito was pretending not to be in.

...He was so sleep-deprived that that was starting to sound like a valid idea.

Kaito snorted to himself and tugged his fingers through his hair before settling into his seat to try and sort some things out.

Like the nonexistent entity that may or may not have been sitting next to him.

And the fact that it sounded suspiciously like his father.

...Honestly, he probably should have just gone home and slept. All this could be explained away by sleep deprivation, and given that he'd only had an hour of sleep since he'd stolen the Spirit's Cry last week it seemed the most likely cause.

Probably.

...He needed to figure out a way to return that soon.

Kaito groaned loudly and let his face fall onto the keyboard.

This wasn't working. He really should have chosen a … library or something if he wanted to have room to think.

...Why had he chosen a cafe, anyway?

Oh, that's right. Chocolate.

Kaito glared at the empty plate by his right elbow, which had once held a chocolate croissant. Everything was all _its _fault, obviously.

"Did you want another one?"

Kaito blinked, then glanced at the waitress who had just made a reappearance. He took a moment longer than he really should have to process the question. "Oh. Um. Yes, please."

She grinned. "Chocolate croissant, right? Coming right up."

Kaito watched her disappear behind a corner before letting his eyes drift close. Maybe he could just take a quick nap… His brain would work better when he woke up…

"Hey, Niichan!"

"Holy - " Kaito almost jumped out of his seat, eyes snapping open to fall on a very short seven-year-old.

_Shit. _He'd forgotten about Tantei-kun.

How the hell had he managed that?

Seriously. His dad was probably turning in his grave.

There was a slight snort from over by the window _but that was impossible because there was nobody there unless Kaito was finally going crazy._

Kaito placed a hand on his heart, willing it to calm down, before glaring down at Conan. "What the hell, kid? You nearly gave me a heart attack!"

...It wasn't so much acting as it was reacting, which was a little worrisome.

"Oh, sorry!" Conan didn't even try to look apologetic. "I just wanted to ask you something."

Kaito sighed. How was this his life, seriously. He ran a hand through his hair, then said, "Sure, go ahead."

"Can I borrow your phone? Mine broke."

Kaito's brain stalled. Was _Edogawa Conan _seriously _asking to borrow his phone?! _Seriously. What the hell was his life.

"...What happened to it?" he asked, half afraid to know the answer.

Conan pulled it out of his pocket wordlessly. Or, rather, the pieces of it. The screen was shattered, and the case was held together with hopes and dreams.

Kaito's eyes widened and he let out a low whistle. "You really did a number on it, didn't you?'

Conan grumbled something under his breath - Kaito thought he caught the phrase 'stupid criminals,' so he made the executive decision that he was better off not knowing.

"Sure," he finally replied, almost positive that this was a bad idea. He rummaged around in his jacket pockets, trying to find Asano Keisuke's phone. He really hoped it wasn't in one of the hidden pockets, because that might be awkward to explain. Oh, hey, first try. Maybe Lady Luck hadn't deserted him entirely.

Still, this was edging a bit close for comfort. He definitely needed to visit a shrine on the way home.

Kaito unlocked the phone and pulled up the app for actually calling people before he handed Conan the cell phone, berating himself the entire time. Because, seriously, what had knocked his brain out of his head?

He was not normally this stupid. What the hell?

It had to be the eyes, he decided a moment later as he watched Conan dial a number from memory. The stupid, big, blue, childish puppy-dog eyes.

That's what was causing this weird behavior. Definitely not sleep deprivation. Or a strange sense of kinship. Nope. Not at all.

...It was probably mostly sleep deprivation.

He really needed a nap.

Kaito was snapped back to the present by a hard poke to his shoulder, which he mostly carefully ignored because _there was nobody there, okay. _Thus, he turned his attention to the person who was actually there and was holding his phone to his ear.

"Hakase?"

Kaito stifled a shiver. Seriously, that voice was so creepy.

"Yeah, sorry, my phone broke. I'm at the café across town, the one where Genta - yes, that one."

So. Creepy. Did he even realize that his voice had gradually dropped an octave and a half?

"My skateboard is a bit - yeah, that. The guy - yes, Haibara, I'm fine. Not even a skinned knee. I jumped off before the blast. I told you, I'm _fine _." Conan rolled his eyes. "Yes, I realize I said that right after I was shot, but - "

Kaito's eyes widened. What? When had Tantei-kun been shot?!

"No, it's actually true this time. Yes, really. I'm not even out of breath."

And then came the terrified scream from the back of the shop. Conan's head turned toward the noise like a bloodhound. "Sorry, Haibara, duty calls," he muttered into the phone before ending the call and sprinting toward the kitchen.

Still holding Asano Keisuke's phone.

Seriously. Kaito's _life._

"Hey, kid!" he called as he jogged half-heartedly after Conan. He was really not looking forward to this. "You still have my phone!"

At least he was somewhat more prepared than the average person in that café for the murders that seemed to follow Edogawa Conan around like a curse.

... Actually, that might not be completely inaccurate. He might need to subtly inquire of Akako if that was a thing.

And if so, how the hell had Conan pissed off a witch? He was, like, seven, what the hell.

He followed Conan to the back and opened the door, mentally preparing himself for the obligatory murder scene.

And - yeah, no, there was no way to steel himself for all the blood and gore and _pieces _everywhere.

Someone must have held a grudge.

Okay, Kaito, deep breaths.

He closed his eyes briefly to center himself, then opened them again to better take in the scene.

(_ Poker face, poker face - )_

And then he saw the faded outline of the person on the floor _who was quite clearly dead _floating above her body, looking around bewilderedly.

"_What the hell."_

Nope. Not happening.

He saw Conan turn to him in concern before his knees crumbled like cheap crayons and he blacked out.


	2. in which kaito has many regrets

"Hey. _Hey. _Niichan. Wake up." The incredibly shrill, annoying voice was accompanied by a light slapping sound and a spark of pain. It took Kaito longer than it should have to connect those two sensations and even longer to realize that the owner of the voice was one Edogawa Conan.

...Who was currently slapping him lightly, apparently trying to wake him up from his impromptu nap on the floor. Because he had fainted. Because there was a dead body on the floor over there. Right. Okay. And there was also a semi-translucent copy of the body floating above it, looking around curiously.

Which.

Okay.

No.

Nope.

Very much nope.

The translucent figure opened her mouth, probably to start speaking, but Kaito's ears were ringing too loud to actually hear anything because _that girl could not possibly be there _due to the fact that, you know, _she was dead and covered in blood on the floor _.

"_ ...What the hell." _

Kaito saw Conan try to refrain from rolling his eyes, but ultimately failing utterly. He'd probably strained something.

But hey. That was a perfectly valid reaction to what he was - _definitely not _seeing.

The voice he was trying to pretend didn't exist laughed softly next to him. Kaito glanced over in its direction to see if he'd finally gone completely bonkers - and, yup, there was his father dressed in full KID regalia for some reason, looking not at all like he'd been exploded ten years ago. Cool.

"I've officially lost it," he muttered numbly, just barely remembering to alter his voice. He refrained from throwing his hands weakly in the air and saying 'hooray.'

The voice, who he was apparently acknowledging was his father, said, _"That's if you ever had it in the first place. I think it might be genetic." _

Which. Fair.

Conan drew his attention by patting his knee awkwardly and saying, "It's going to be fine. Could you please call the police?" while simultaneously checking his pupils for signs of a concussion. He frowned slightly at the colored contact lenses that were preventing him from getting an accurate reading (ha, Kaito _had _remembered to do something more than put on a pair of glasses and call it a disguise).

Kaito nodded, resolutely ignoring the snickers coming from his father, who was apparently just going to float next to him and make wisecracks about his life choices.

To be honest, Kaito probably would have done the same in this situation.

He pulled out his phone under Conan's watchful eye, hands shaking slightly, and dialled 119. Satisfied, Conan turned and went to examine the body. Did he not realize how strange that was?

The call connected.

Kaito abruptly realized that he had no idea what to say. "Um, hi. There's a dead body here. I'm pretty sure it was murder."

Nailed it.

_"Okay, sir, I'm going to need your location, please." _

"The - um." He looked at Conan, who had a handkerchief out and had picked up the victim's wrist to get a closer look. "Do you remember the name of this café?"

"Christie's café," Conan answered absently, moving on to her - nails, possibly?

"Kurisuchizu café," Kaito relayed to the operator. There was a brief pause while she typed something into her computer, probably working on getting a police car to them. He was proved right a moment later when she said, _"All right. I have Yamamura-keibu en route to your location. Please refrain from touching the body and surrounding area. Do your best to keep others from doing the same." _

Kaito bit back a hysterical laugh. That wasn't going to be a problem. "I should probably tell that to the kid, then, shouldn't I."

The operator sighed. _"Kid?" _

Kaito absolutely _did not _flinch. "Yeah."

_"Dark hair, oversized glasses, dressed like a miniature college professor?" _

"Yup."

She sighed again. _"Don't worry about it. We have a code for him." _She paused to type something again. _"It's practically a right of passage here to call a 4869." _

"Run into a lot of murders, does he?" Kaito watched as Conan examined the victim's shoes.

_"You have no idea. This is literally the third this week." _

"But it's only Thursday?"

_"I know." _

"Wow, okay. Well, I guess I'm in good hands, then. Spicy." Oh god, why was he like this.

Luckily, the operator ignored him. _"Yes - it'll be about two minutes until Yamamura-keibu arrives, so if you could try and keep everyone else away from the crime scene, that would be fantastic." _

"Okay, got it. Thanks."

Kaito hung up the phone and watched in bemusement as Conan casually sniffed the victim's mouth.

He knew tangentially that Conan solved murders, but to actually see it…

Honestly, it was kind of disturbing. Six-year-olds should _not _have that much experience in...whatever he was doing with the dead woman's hair (because she _was _dead, and yet there she was floating above her body like she wasn't quietly breaking his reality).

_"You know, it's been a while since I've seen him at a crime scene," _his father commented absently. Kaito flicked his eyes in his direction, because apparently he was acknowledging that he had lost the last vestiges of his sanity.

Kaito assumed that Conan was too absorbed in looking for clues to pay too much attention to the one guy with an alibi, so he kissed the last dregs of his denial goodbye and muttered a response. "You've seen him before? I'm pretty sure that's impossible. He's, like, six. And you died ten years ago. So."

His father smirked secretively. _"Yes. He hasn't aged a day." _

Kaito blinked. "In ten years."

His dad spread his arms wordlessly, looking endlessly smug. Kaito accepted that he probably wasn't going to be getting any answers out of him any time soon, since that was the same face he'd had when Kaito had been trying to figure out how to do a magic trick. His father had enjoyed dangling hints in front of him but never actually telling him how they worked. It was incredibly annoying, but it had been better for him in the long run, he supposed.

"You're saying that he hasn't aged a day in ten years."

His father shrugged languidly. _"That _is _what I said. He's the son of one of my former students - you remember, the one that yelled at you because you called her 'oba-san.'" _

Kaito blinked again. "Dad, Yukiko-neechan only had one kid before we lost contact with them. And, you know, you _died _."

His father snickered. _"Are you still that scared of her?" _

"Well, duh." Kaito rolled his eyes. "She was legitimately crazier than both of us. That's pretty damn insane. She was almost on the same level as _Mom. _" Wait, shit, the kid was still in the room. He probably shouldn't be cursing. Kaito's eyes darted towards him, and - yep, still focused on the body. So. Creepy. But, like, at least he didn't have to worry about Mouri-chan kicking his head in for colouring the kid's vocabulary. "Wait, don't try to distract me!"

_"By the way, I'd thought you had figured this out already - we didn't 'lose contact' with them, you know." _

"Really? Because I could've sworn that that was exactly what happened, seeing as we didn't ever talk to Yukiko-neechan after the funeral - _your _funeral."

_"And it never occurred to you that that was by design?" _

"No, why would - huh." That actually made a lot of sense. Only Yukiko-neechan had made an appearance at the funeral, and she had been wearing a large hat and sunglasses - which had basically functioned the same way his top hat and monocle did. _He'd _hardly recognized her, and she'd been his father's apprentice for nearly a year. Also, her face had been seared into his memory after that one _terrifying _incident.

Since that traumatic day, he had never _once _called anyone oba-san or any derivative thereof unless they were quite clearly over the age of sixty.

...She had been really scary to a six-year-old, okay.

So she'd come to the funeral in disguise, and the rest of her family (who were either pretty terrible at disguises or just not interested in learning, if he remembered correctly) hadn't shown up at all. There wouldn't have been any particular reason to do that - well, other than as an homage to her teacher, which she probably could have gotten away with if anyone had realized - except for the fact that he was mostly certain that her husband wrote mystery novels for a living and helped the police out every so often.

They were probably familiar enough with the mechanics behind covered-up murders that they could recognize one on sight.

"Huh," he repeated. "So that means Mom must have - huh."

His father smirked, expression making it clear that he was laughing at Kaito for not figuring it out before.

"But there's still no way that _that _kid could possibly be _this _kid! That's not how time _works _!"

His dad was full on laughing now, bent over double and clutching his ribs and everything. If he weren't already, you know, _dead _(which Kaito was still low-key freaking out about, by the way) and therefore didn't need to breathe, Kaito would've been worried he might laugh himself to death.

His dad managed to pull himself together eventually, though he had to resort to slipping on his Poker Face to actually stop snickering for any period of time.

Kaito rolled his eyes, feeling very much like a teenager in that moment.

_"Kaito," _his father began. _"Who is the one person you can disguise yourself as in two seconds? A disguise that doesn't look like it took two seconds, by the way, unlike the one you're wearing now." _

Kaito blinked, blatantly ignoring the dig. He...had not been expecting that abrupt change of topic - oh, wait. "Um. Yukiko-neechan's kid."

_"Bingo." _A few fireworks erupted around his dad and Kaito got sidetracked for a moment wondering if they, like, respawned or something every time he used them or if he only had as many as he'd had on him the night he'd died. _"Now. I believe - ah, yes, here we go." _

An old, faded, mostly translucent photograph poofed into existence in a small puff of smoke and Kaito's father positioned it in the air so that it and Conan were about the same height, floating side-by-side.

The picture was of Kaito and his father at his last magic show, taken just before it started. Kaito had wondered what had happened to it, but then he realized that it must have gone up in smoke with his father.

Kaito looked at the picture. Then at Conan. Then back. "Okay, so he looks like a straight-laced mini-me. A mini-me with control issues. That doesn't mean that Yukiko-neechan didn't just have another kid or something. Or, like, one of their close relatives just happened to get the right combination of genes."

_"Neither Yukiko nor Yuusaku have any siblings. And, to be perfectly honest, they could hardly handle one kid, let alone more. They were so restless while Shinichi-kun was in school… I do believe that they took off flying around the world again just as soon as he could legally be left alone for long periods of time." _His dad frowned slightly, brow creasing, before muttering to himself. _"I would have asked Chikage if we could have taken him in if I'd still been alive, but we did have to cut contact with them for a reason." _

"But that doesn't mean - "

_"Kaito, think." _

So he thought.

And he came to the same conclusion. "But that's impossible! People don't just - "

Kaito's dad smirked. _"And yet here you are, talking to your dead father's ghost." _

Kaito's mouth clicked closed. Well. He had him there.

He took a careful breath. "Okay, I'm still half convinced that I'm hallucinating all this, but okay. So you're saying, what, that he's stayed six this entire time? Because that's a little far-fetched, and I don't mean the Pokemon."

Kaito's dad shook his head, smirk back in place. _"No, I'm saying that he got himself shrunk. Or de-aged, I suppose." _

Kaito took a moment to process that. "That...actually sounds plausible."

His father's face fell, oddly enough. _"I wasn't expecting you to come around that quickly. I had a whole finale planned." _

Kaito shrugged. "Dad, I have a witch in my class. Shrinking seems more likely than him just staying that age this whole time, especially since I've disguised as the teenage him and no one seemed to bat an eye… Except for him, of course - he always knows exactly when it's me in disguise - oh. Suddenly a lot of things make a lot more sense. Actually, the most confusing part of this is why _you _know about it."

His dad shrugged. _"It gets boring when you sleep, and I felt that I should probably check in on my godson from time to time." _

"...What." Kaito blinked, unsure how to respond because _what even. _

_"Yes, I just happened to be there when he was shrunk, so I actually know the whole story. The next chance you get, you should ask him how he chose his new alias because that story is hilarious." _

"You know, that's _awfully _convenient of you to know…"

His dad shrugged. _"I was under the impression that you thought I was a hallucination." _

Kaito wanted to rip his hair out. And, since his impulse control had never been great, he was tugging on his hair as if he were preparing to tear it out when Yamamura-keibu appeared rather dramatically in the doorway. Kaito, unfortunately, did not notice this until Yamamura-keibu cleared his throat, which was _after _he started talking to his father again - "What the _hell _, dad - !"

"Ahem."

Both the inspector and Conan were staring at him, eyes wide.

Kaito grinned sheepishly. "Um. Hi. Sorry, don't mind me. I'm just...yelling at a ghost."

Why, _why_, did he say these things.

. . . Notes: I was supposed to be writing tmq but this happened instead so...whoops, my finger slipped?


	3. in which kaito figures out a secret

Notes:

hey guess what this story isn't dead

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...Apparently Yamamura-keibu saw nothing wrong with him saying he was talking to a ghost, and that really said something about the police force. But then again, they _were _familiar with Edogawa "Shinigami" Conan, so he guessed it wouldn't be _too _out of the question for some kind of...psychic...detective?...to turn up…

But, also, like.

Seriously?

He'd barely even questioned it.

He was a _police officer_.

Kaito suddenly had _so much _more respect for Nakamori-keibu. The only one who seemed even remotely suspicious of the random guy claiming to be psychic was the six-year-old kid (who was apparently sixteen, actually, and wasn't that a trip and a half), which was a little depressing for obvious reasons.

But, like.

He _guessed _he was going with it, so whatever.

He'd deal with the implications after he'd taken a nap, which...probably wasn't going to be for a while yet, since he was at an _active crime scene. _And the whole thirty seconds he'd been unconscious almost certainly didn't count. Being unconscious wasn't the same thing as sleeping, or so he'd been told.

_"I...can't say that I was expecting him to buy that." _

"Yeah, neither was I," Kaito muttered under his breath, because if Yamamura-keibu didn't think he was crazy at this point than he saw no reason to change that. Edogawa Conan, of course, actually _did _notice him talking to himself, because he was apparently a scary sixteen-year-old trapped in a six-year-old's body (because why not, whatever), and narrowed his eyes.

Clearly, this had been Kaito's intention. Obviously.

(He..._ might _still be _slightly _off balance from the whole my-dad-is-a-ghost-and-I-can-interact-with-him... _thing. _

Because, yeah, Poker Face had _not _prepared him for that.)

He winked and Conan anyway, just for kicks, and his father laughed at him because he was _such _a help in this situation.

Conan scoffed and rolled his eyes derisively, but let it go. Probably because he assumed it was part of the whole psychic 'act.'

He was right, except for the part where it wasn't actually an act and that was _pretty disconcerting, okay _, because _witches _were one thing, but ghosts? Kaito suppressed a shudder.

If he weren't so sleep deprived, he probably would've talked to Akako by now. She almost certainly would know what's up.

Actually, no. He still had _some _self-preservation left.

(As infinitesimally small an amount as that may be.)

He was still kind of pretending that he couldn't see the ghost of the woman lying dead on the floor in pieces because he kind of didn't really want to know what she would say if she knew he could see her. And, like. If he didn't process her existence, she didn't exist.

That was how that worked.

Obviously.

Except…

She was _very _hard to ignore.

The ghost was kind of...spinning around in circles above her body, like she was in _The Sound of Music _, except instead of mountains and grass there were body parts and blood and oh wow Kaito just threw up in his mouth a little. That was an image he was going to be seeing in his nightmares, wow.

Then he realized that the ghost was talking, and he decided he should probably start listening, if only so this whole crime scene/material witness thing could be over quicker and he could go back to, you know, researching how to stop seeing ghosts. Or, like, sleeping.

Except maybe his dad. He could stay.

_" - this was a terrible idea, wow, why the hell did I decide it was a good idea to take a drink from her. What the hell did she spike it with, LSD? Because this is a real trip, wow, it looks like there are two of me, and one's like, dismembered? Freaky." _

...She wasn't very helpful.

_"Hey, why aren't any of y'all listening to me? Man, if I were in an anime I'd be a background character that doesn't even get a fully detailed face, that's how insignificant y'all are making me feel. For shame." _

She poked her foot through the body's torso and giggled as it passed right through. _"Yo, dude, are you seeing this? I have the power of God and anime on my side - I can do anything!" _

Okay, so. Clearly she hadn't realized she was dead yet.

Solid. That was. Great information, right there.

"Yamamura-keibu, we have the suspects," a uniformed officer called from outside the break room.

Kaito only remembered there being, like, two customers in the cafe other than him? So it wasn't like the suspect list was super long. He obviously wasn't a suspect, since literally the only competent detective in the room (who only _looked _like he was five, which...did not help the situation because, well, _he looked five_) was his alibi, so that left the maybe-two customers, the owner-slash-cook, and the two waitresses.

One of those customers was apparently her boyfriend, which was looking like a pretty good motive for murder - except Kaito couldn't really remember them arguing? But, like, then again, he'd also been very extremely focused on, you know, _not _freaking out about the fact that _he could see dead people. _

Or murder victims, at least.

And wasn't that trauma-inducing.

(He sure was lucky that he was completely ace at compartmentalizing, otherwise he'd probably be in a mental institution by now. Or, you know, dead.)

(...Probably dead.)

(That was depressing.)

(But, like. That's what he got for purposefully making a target of himself, dressing in white at night and stealing jewels _and getting shot at _and wow that really was his life now, wasn't it.)

(He should...probably get some therapy. Like, a lot of it. All the therapy.)

(...Who would be a good therapist for phantom thieves, though?)

Conan and Yamamura-keibu stepped out into the hallway to question the suspects, and Kaito followed them mostly because he didn't really want to be left alone with a cadaver and its ghost reenacting...it looked like she'd moved on from _The Sound of Music _to _High School Musical _? Talk about a genre jump.

The owner-slash-chef of the cafe was named Hagane Yuki. She was a stout woman, about fifty-four (Kaito was very good at guesstimating ages), with graying black hair scraped back severely into a bun and held in place by what looked like almost as much hair gel as Conan - or, Shinichi, he guessed - used. Or, at least, the amount of hair gel Kaito had to use to tame his hair when he was disguising himself as Shinichi. Hagane-san was wringing her hands in her apron, looking increasingly worried - partially about her cafe, since Kaito assumed that not a lot of people wanted to eat at a place where someone had been murdered, but mostly about the victim. "W-who is it?" she asked, voice trembling even as she held herself like her spine was made of steel.

The waitress who'd found the body was called Yoshikawa Emiko, twenty-six. She was a slight woman with light brown hair drawn back in a ponytail. She wore flowing clothing under her half-apron - as much as she could, given the cafe's guidelines for health and safety, which Kaito had apparently read at some point? He didn't remember reading them, which was a little disconcerting, but, like, not as much as the whole ghost thing, and he had _priorities, okay _\- and was currently shaking like a leaf. Kaito didn't blame her. Crime scenes were scary as a rule, but this one was - well, it would fit in well as the star attraction of a haunted house. "I-it was - it was Sawada-san, I - um, I think," she said, and Kaito was pretty sure she was going into shock. He muttered something along those lines to one of the officers nearby, who took one look at the suspect and agreed. She went off to find a shock blanket or something helpful.

"Hana-chan?!" exclaimed the only male suspect. He'd been a customer, sitting at the same table as the victim. "I thought she was just taking a long time in the bathroom. It had only been - what, maybe ten minutes…?"

His name was Takayama Sensui, about nineteen, and he looked like your generic student council president type - bowl cut, glasses, the whole shebang. He was also still dressed in his school uniform, even though it was probably about 20:00 by now. Yet, somehow, he'd apparently been under the impression he was on a date with Sawada Hana, the victim. Or, maybe the appearance of a date…?

"Women don't take _ten minutes _in the bathroom," said Ayuzawa Shouko, the waitress who'd made Kaito a fresh pot of coffee earlier. She was dressed in a drably-colored dress, not particularly distinctive, and had one of those ageless faces that seemed like she might be thirty or maybe sixty, or anywhere in between. Kaito honestly couldn't tell.

His father, though, having had more life experience than Kaito at his tender seventeen years of age, could - apparently she was thirty-sevenish. He'd been unusually quiet up until this point, which, like, Kaito was kind of glad about? It was very nerve-wracking to go from not being able to have a conversation with your father (because he was, you know, _dead _) to being able to hold intelligent conversations not only with your father but _also _with other murder victims (also because they were dead).

Kaito still wasn't entirely sure this wasn't just a vivid hallucination.

Anyway.

...What about the second customer? He remembered there being a second customer.

Oh, right.

She was dead.

Damn, he'd circled right back to the whole _I see dead people _...thing.

"Hey, hey, Yamamura-keibu! Don't her nails look weird?"

….Aaaaaaand Conan was over by the body again. Of course. Why was he not surprised.

Yamamura-keibu _hrmm _ed and crouched down to pick up one of the hands with his handkerchief and _wow _, Kaito was _not _cut out to be a detective.

Some of her fingernails were covered in long, floral-patterned acrylic nails. They were almost claw-like, which made the whole image _that _much more unnecessarily macabre. Her first two fingers - the index and the middle - were bare, though, and Yamamura-keibu's brow was furrowed as he tried to figure out what was going on. "Hm, maybe there was a struggle?"

Conan looked like he was about to agree, which, _no? _

"They're lesbians, Harold," Kaito's mouth said before his brain could say_ , no, bad! _

Bad brain.

"I thought she was American," Conan muttered under his breath automatically, then looked appalled at himself.

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Notes:

so i just...randomly got a burst of inspiration for this story? neat the most recent chapter of tmq was super late because of my bnha server mini-bang fic which was about ten times longer than i expected it to be so that's...fun (no actually i'm really proud of it y'all should read it)

and this story has *never* had a consistent update schedule so. sorry, i have literally no clue.


	4. in which kaito reads fanfiction

Notes:

so uh  
accidental coming out in this chapter  
was not planned but it sure did happen  
also some lesbophobia, quickly shut down by our main boys

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Kaito was delighted. Apparently Tantei-kun knew memes.

He was a man of _culture._

And then he glanced back at the disembodied hand and thought _oh, right._

He probably shouldn't start laughing.

Because they were at a murder scene.

A really _gross_ murder scene, too.

"You should probably question the guy pretending to be her boyfriend," Kaito suggested to the room at large, mostly just to have something to say to break the awkward silence.

Conan, curiously, didn't seem to notice that the police officers had frozen in place trying to process the information, too busy going over every inch of the crime scene again in case there was something _else_ he'd missed. Wow, that kid - wait, no, _teenager_, because people de-aging was a thing now, apparently - really had a chip on his shoulder about solving mysteries, didn't he.

"B-but she's so pretty!" one of the greying officers burst out, and the other one rushed to nod in agreement, like he'd just been waiting for someone to say it so he wouldn't have to. "She's too attractive to be a lesbian!"

Kaito blinked, once. Seriously? Were they _actually_ serious? Please, please say no.

He glanced over to his dad, who was just kind of floating beside him, cape flowing in a nonexistent breeze because he was just that Extra™.

Or - _had been,_ Kaito supposed.

It was kind of depressing, the thought that his father would disappear as soon as Kaito stopped hallucinating.

"A girl can't like girls because she's pretty?" Conan asked innocently, eyes hard and glinting, apparently having tuned back into the conversation sometime in the past thirty seconds. Great. Solid.

Kaito blinked, coming back to himself, then glanced over at Conan because there was a reason he was answering that question instead of leaving it for the 'adults' in the room.

...Actually, it was probably _because_ the adults in the room weren't saying anything.

"Yes, what does that have to do with anything?" Kaito found himself adding, not bothering to restrain himself from folding his arms even though he knew it looked defensive.

Conan side-eyed him, and Kaito felt himself bristling, but he clamped down on that reaction _tout de suite._ One of his best friends was lesbian, another friend was aromantic (though he was hesitant to label Akako a friend, exactly), and he himself wasn't all that straight either.

"Well," one of the police officers said, puzzled, like he couldn't understand why Kaito was even asking, "a pretty woman can get a boyfriend easily enough. They don't need to resort to other girls."

Kaito ground his teeth together, and Conan's jaw clenched like he was doing the same.

The ghost - Sawada Hana - flinched violently, like she'd been struck, then scoffed loudly, drawing Kaito's eyes to her. He could feel Conan's piercing gaze following his line of sight and frowning when he couldn't figure out what Kaito was looking at.

Sawada folded her arms, pressing them tightly to her rib cage. "That's not how that works, _jackass!_" she spat, and Kaito found his lips turning up slightly at the corners in response.

"That's not how it works," he agreed, relaying her words to the officers. And then he just sort of kept going, because Kaito was _not_ in control of his mouth when he was tired, apparently. "You can't choose who you're attracted to - she wasn't a lesbian because she 'couldn't get a man.' What the hell, dude, yeet your backwards thoughts back into the eighties where they belong. This is the twenty-first century and you're a _police officer._ You need to be better than that if you're going to be a good one. Good officers _stop_ prejudice, not perpetuate it."

"Damn straight," Conan muttered under his breath.

_Not quite the right words for this particular situation, Tantei-kun,_ Kaito thought, mildly hysterically, because he had _not_ meant to go on that rant and also his father was being worryingly silent. Kaito rewound his words in his head, just to make sure he hadn't accidentally outed himself. He hadn't, not with words, but the way Conan was looking at him consideringly made him think that _maybe_ his facial expression or body language had given him away.

He slammed down his Poker Face again, just in case, and waited tensely.

_"Thank you, Kaito,"_ his father said finally, placing a hand on his shoulder. Kaito could feel the pressure, neither warm nor cold, and he felt something deep inside himself ease. His father, of course, read his body language as easily as Kaito could read the relationships between people in any given room._ "Kaito, of course I know about you. I may have been dead for the past ten years, but I'm still your father and I love you. Nothing you do, nothing you are, **nothing **could ever change that."_

Kaito blinked. He would _not_ start crying. He would _not_.

His father patted his shoulder again. _"Besides, as mine and Chikage's son, frankly I'd be disappointed if you arbitrarily limited yourself to one gender - dating **or **being."_

Fuck.

_Fuck._

He was having emotions.

"_Damn, wish I had me a dad like that,"_ Sawada commented, floating past the scene.

Which, fair.

Kaito's dad was pretty great.

_"That reminds me,"_ his father said, and Kaito could _tell_ that his eyes were twinkling mischievously even though his father was standing - floating? - behind him. _"Did I ever tell you about that time when Yuusaku and I - "_

"Dad, I do _not_ want to know about your sex life, thanks," Kaito said out loud without thinking about it. Brain bleach, he needed brain bleach, before he started actually picturing his dad and almost uncle (He wasn't exactly sure how Yuusaku was related to him, except that he _knew_ it wasn't genetically and - oh, shit, he was Conan's dad, wasn't he? That was awkward.) together and - damn it, he was picturing it now.

His father chuckled, enjoying the chaos he was wreaking. He was a true Kuroba.

Somehow, no one except Conan had noticed his outburst, judging by the weird look he was giving Kaito. Yamamura-keibu seemed to be oblivious to the world, poking at the body. The two police officers looked like they were possibly having an existential crisis as they tried to reconcile their views on being LGBT+ and their jobs as police officers, which, honestly, _good_. If they hadn't, they didn't deserve to be called police officers, and Kaito probably would have found a way to get them fired, or at least demoted. They were nearing retirement age, so maybe a forced retirement? A glance over at Conan said that he was thinking something similar.

Or, actually.

Maybe he could just set Nakamori-keibu on them.

He was very protective of Aoko and her sexuality, even if he didn't really understand it, and he would have fun shouting some sense about prejudice into their heads.

But, since they were actively mulling it over now, that probably wouldn't be necessary.

Yamamura-keibu looked up from the body (the pieces of it, really) and coughed, breaking the tension in the room. Not that he knew. "How could you tell that from her fingers, though?"

...Kaito _really_ did not want to have to explain that. A quick glance at Conan reveals that he also did not, which, honestly, _fair_.

Except Conan had an excuse for not mentioning the reason since he was currently six. Or maybe seven? It was hard to tell. Kaito knew intellectually that he was in first grade, but Conan was _tiny_.

_"Oh my god, you can tell that I'm lesbian from my **fingers? **How the hell does that work? No, seriously, I want to know. What gave me away? What if my parents figure it out?!"_ The murder victim was getting more and more worked up, and it almost looked like she was about to have an asthma attack, except for the fact that even if she did it wouldn't make much difference because she _didn't need to breathe._

Since she was, you know, dead.

Not that she'd realized that yet, of course.

Kaito cleared his throat and Conan looked instantly relieved, so he supposed he'd made the right choice. "Lesbians generally don't wear talon-like acrylics," he explained delicately. "They can be - _painful_, for their partners."

Yamamura-keibu blinked, the two statements clearly not computing in his head, but he shrugged and said, "Okay. We need to question the 'boyfriend' again, then."

Kaito was suspicious as to why his word was accepted so easily, right up until Yamamura-keibu added, "You know, you can just _say_ that her ghost told you."

Oh.

Okay, then.

Why not.

"Her ghost told me," Kaito repeated robotically, and specifically did not look in Sawada's ghost's direction. He did not want to deal with that particular kettle of worms if he could help it.

Conan looked like he desperately wanted to roll his eyes, which Kaito thought was fair. It seemed like Yamamura-keibu was particularly gullible when it came to the supernatural, and since the supernatural didn't exist in Conan's world...

Except for the part where it _did_. Unless Kaito was hallucinating.

Which was, unfortunately, a distinct possibility.

He _really_ needed to take a nap.

Yamamura-keibu told the two beat cops to make sure no one gets into the crime scene, then did nothing to prevent Kaito and Conan from following him as he pulled the distraught boyfriend into the kitchen, which was currently the only private place in the cafe that wasn't also part of an active crime scene.

"Takayama Sensui-san?" Yamamura-keibu asked, and then continued without preamble at Takayama's shaky nod. "Were you aware that Sawada-san was lesbian?"

Takayama blinked, brow creasing with concern. "I - yes, why - how did you - ?"

"If you knew she liked women, then why did you say that you're her boyfriend?" Conan interrupted pointedly, in that weird innocent little kid voice of his.

Takayama's eyes darted from the tiny child to the police detective, then to Kaito who was just sort of standing off to the side and watching. They weren't particularly intimidating - and Kaito would know - but Takayama caved almost instantly.

"Look, I was her beard and I - I like _men_, okay? It wasn't just that I was her beard - she was mine, too. We were going to pretend to date until we both got stable jobs, and then we were going to come out to our parents together..." Takayama choked on the words, eyes watering as he tried to compose himself. "We - I - it was just easier that way, you know?"

"Understandable, have a great day," Kaito muttered under his breath. Conan shot him a piercing glance and you know what? Kaito was getting kind of tired of that.

"...What's a 'beard,' in this context?" Yamamura-keibu asked, blinking rapidly. He probably hadn't expected to get answers so quickly.

"A fake dating AU except neither one will ever fall in love with the other because their sexualities are incompatible," Kaito replied.

Even Conan looked at him blankly at that.

Huh. Kaito guessed they didn't read much fanfiction about their alter-egos. Yamamura-keibu, he could understand, but Conan? Kaito knew for a fact that there was an absurd amount of fanfiction involving Kudou Shinichi. Some of it also involved him-as-KID, which was...interesting, considering the fact that Kaito was fairly certain that they'd never met each other while Conan was Shinichi and Kaito was KID.

"A guy who likes guys pretends to date a girl so that he looks straight, or a girl who likes girls pretends to date a guy so that people think she's straight, or any variations thereupon," Kaito elaborated.

"Huh. Neat," said Yamamura-keibu, not bothering to ask anymore questions, and Kaito was starting to wonder how he'd ever risen through the ranks. He had a feeling that Conan probably had something to do with it.

...He could probably take the way Conan was looking at Yamamura-keibu as confirmation of his theory.

(Kaito was resolutely _not_ looking at the blurry shadow hanging around behind Conan, because he was already teetering on the edge of a mental breakdown as it was and thinking too hard about that would definitely make him overbalance. Sure, he was an acrobat and could probably flip through some mental hoops to end up back on the wire, but that didn't necessarily mean that it was a _good_ idea.)

(Therapy. He needed _all_ the therapy.)

(Conan could probably use some, too.)

"Right, so, that story the waitress - Ayuzawa-san - told us about you breaking up with her over text was inaccurate?" Yamamura-keibu asked, because apparently Kaito had missed something in his state of constant panic.

Takayama blinked, then waved his hands wildly. "No, no, of _course_ not! Why would I - we're in a mutually beneficial agreement with mutually assured destruction - why would I end that?" He fumbled with something in his pocket, yanking out his phone and almost dropping it a few times while he unlocked it and tapped on the messaging app. He brandished the screen towards them - well, mainly towards Yamamura-keibu, who was nominally in charge of the investigation, and Conan, who just so happened to be standing near enough to see.

"It's...just memes," Conan said blankly, after staring at the screen for a long moment.

Takayama nodded violently. "Yes, exactly! Why on earth would I want to murder my best source for memes?"

"Oh, that's a big mood," Kaito and the ghost, who'd apparently drifted through the wall at some point while he'd been distracted, said at the same time. He blinked, then exchanged a glance with the ghost who promptly realized that _he could see her_ and damn it this was going to bite him in the ass, wasn't it.

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Notes:

tmq is not abandoned  
i just had a weird burst of inspiration for this fic  
im like halfway through the next tmq chapter IT IS HAPPENING

also the next chapter is up on ao3


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